Embracing Marketing Operations: What is It and Why Bother?

What the heck is Marketing Operations anyway and why should I give a (beep)?

While the definition and perceived value of MO varies from one organization (and one CMO) to another, one truth is self-evident:

Those organizations that choose to ignore the need for MO do so at their own risk.

On the other hand, those serious Marketing organizations that embrace a new MO can overcome unmanageable complexity and the perception of being a cost center to deliver Marketing excellence – truly integrated and aligned Marketing that serves the enterprise as a strategic asset, a growth driver, an accountable business function and a facilitator of change.

Subscription businesses can lose the happiest of subscribers because of involuntary churn—that deadly form of attrition that comes from card declines and invoice failures.

Even slight variations in a subscription business’ churn rate can have significant impact on revenues, so it’s critical to address involuntary churn -- and easier than ever. The latest subscription technology leverages machine learning, which can improve transaction success rates and billing continuity, helping automatically reduce involuntary churn and boost monthly recurring revenue by an average of 9 percent.

Want to know more about how subscription businesses are making a positive impact on revenue? How can you optimize decline management and revenue recovery strategies based on your own unique business needs? Join our latest VB Live event and you’ll learn how to start and where, plus get a first look at the latest Revenue Recovery Benchmarks, which reveal the powerful impact of machine learning.

Don’t miss out!

Registration is free.

In this webinar, you’ll learn...
* The power of dynamic retry logic, optimized for each individual invoice
* The incremental lift that a well-designed dunning strategy can have on revenue
* The key metrics every subscription business should understand to prevent churn
* How to develop a comprehensive decline management and revenue recovery plan using proven strategies for successful transactions.

When it’s used to curate, create, and deliver fresh content, artificial intelligence pushes the marketing content game to the next level. Your goal: Get the right content to the right people, when and where they want to see it. Machine learning is the key, saving you time, money, and guesswork.

Machine learning can help you uncover not just what content is most competitive but what characteristics are pushing it to the top of the list, and even help you fine-tune your message in real time, keeping it fresh and commanding consumer attention. Once that message is refined and optimized, AI can help you determine consumer intent, seize site-specific demand opportunities, gauge opportunity sizing — and then make sure your message is discovered with predictive intelligence.

To learn more about how to take the educated guesswork out of content creation, make your pitch more persuasive, and magnify your message, don’t miss this VB Live event.

The hype surrounding AI has reached a fever pitch, but practical uses that are delivering concrete, practical business results are here, and it’s time to get real.

From taking over the routine requests for customer service agents, reducing costs, speeding up service, and boosting customer satisfaction, to reliably helping marketers deliver what a customer wants, when they want it and where, AI is popping up everywhere, and companies need to figure out where they stand, fast, to stay competitive.

Join this VB Live event, hosted by Forrester Senior Analyst Brandon Purcell and Kayak Chief Scientist Matthias Keller to learn more about how to identify the AI use cases that can transform your business, and how to get started, stat.

You’ll learn:
* What technologies fall under the AI umbrella
* How companies like Kayak use AI to understand customers and personalize experiences
* How to identify the right AI use case for your business
* Common challenges firms face when implementing AI
* Why AI’s time in the sun has finally come, and why it’s here to stay

AI isn’t a nice-to-have any more, it’s a must-have. There’s a reason why corporate giants like Google, IBM, Yahoo, Intel, Apple, and Salesforce are competing to snatch up private AI companies. In the first quarter of 2017 alone, 37 AI companies were swallowed whole.

Companies aren’t just using these AI tools to enable existing marketing strategies; they’re taking those strategies to the next level, going beyond simple retention and delivering active engagement. AI technology offers companies unprecedented insight into customer behaviors, patterns, and beliefs, allowing you to seamlessly anticipate customer needs and serve up hyper-personalized, emotionally resonant campaigns where and when they’re most welcome.

2018 is the year to seize the AI advantage. To learn more about the technology you need, the opportunities it unlocks, and what it takes to get your ball in the game, don’t miss this VB Live event!

In this webinar, you'll learn:
* What’s new in AI for 2018 -- and what’s coming down the pike
* How businesses are using AI to drive results
* How to go beyond customer retention and power customer engagement

Incorporating location intelligence into digital strategies to engage consumers in real time, increase brand loyalty and provide actionable data will be more critical in 2018 than ever before.

Using cutting edge location data, Possible and Skyhook have both been able to actively engage fans in engaging experiences at large-scale sporting events. Enhanced insights into the fan experience via location data include crowd density at various locations within the venue, the best spots for spectators to view the action, the movement of fans relative to players, and more.

During this webinar you’ll learn how to:
* Boost engagement with real-time, location-based consumer engagement and experiences
* Gain insight into the behavioral patterns of customers and prospects
* Understand the future of location data for your business

Ad fraud isn’t becoming more prevalent -- the fraudsters are just getting slicker. From bot nets to device ID spoofing, the tricks are getting more sophisticated, and raking in more and more cash for the swindlers.

Staying ahead of the fraudster’s learning curve is the key — and collaboration is the crucial element. While vendors and advertisers are directly impacted by fraud, tracking partners provide the technology to help fight fraud – all three players have to work together to circle the wagons.

Making a game plan can be complex, when there are no clear benchmarks for defining or measuring fraud, as each player defines it differently and different benchmarks are needed for each app type, geo, traffic source, and so on.

Join this VB Live event to learn how to tackle that complexity, how to define benchmarks, detect and manage fraud, and work with your partners to circle the wagons against the fraudsters.

Register for free!

You’ll learn:
* Who the stakeholders are, plus why and how is each is affected
* The MMPs’ role in this ecosystem
* What fraud is and what benchmarks should be used for defining it
* How to collaborate to detect and manage fraud on an ongoing basis
* What tools are out there to fight fraud

Predictive analytics & artificial intelligence are transforming the way all companies connect with customers. The customer experience is on the verge of being completely redefined with A.I.

In this talk, you will learn what it takes for a business to deliver this new 21st-century customer conversation. Patrick will cover:

- Collecting & Managing CX data - What I learned analyzing 3 billion records at Amazon
- We have the data, now what? AI & the Future of Customer Experience
- How to use Predictive Analytics to find the right customer on the right channel
- 3 ways to drive ROI for your business by applying AI to improve the Customer Experience

Patrick is CEO of Lumidatum which helps CMOs apply artificial intelligence to the customer experience in order to grow revenue. He has been in the data and analytics space for over a decade including running a machine learning and advanced analytics team at Amazon.

Have you been planning on a content marketing strategy but just can’t seem to get it launched? If your goal for 2017 is to finally execute a solid content marketing strategy, check out this webinar to go through everything you’ll need to do – from content development to planning to promotion – to execute a successful content marketing plan.

Rosanna Garcia, Assoc. Professor of Marketing, North Carolina State University and CEO, co-founder of Vijilent

Social Media mining has been touted as essential for listening in on your target market. But does it really work? This presentation discusses the different methods used for social media mining and introduces the usefulness of natural language processing for understanding your consumers with case studies that demonstrate how firms are listening into the segment-of-one.

Everyone is on Facebook, right? Wrong. Every day, there are new social media platforms launching and diluting the impact each social media platform has. And while we’re in the era of social media dominance, there’s still a large population that falls under “non-social savvy.” Believe it or not.

This session will help us understand today’s social media landscape and help brands and marketers discover what the right platforms are for their audience. It will also dig into key marketing tools and metrics that help engage and attract the target customer and dial into why having a responsive process is critical for brand visibility, integrity, and equity.

99% of Social Media Posts receive near zero engagement fail to create a stir. Even sponsored campaigns fall flat. Yet, few posts go viral overnight and the person & the brand become celebrities overnight, without spending a dime on promotions. Getting a fair share of returns on investments in Social Media marketing efforts continue to be a challenge for enterprises and Small & Medium businesses worldwide.

In this webinar you will learn:
- Where are you going wrong with Social Media Marketing?
- Things you can do to fix and super-charge your social media campaigns.
- Practical Step by Step approach to Change the Game! & Get more from Social Media Campaigns.

Inbound marketing has surged in popularity in recent years, effectively generating 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound.Yet, many large enterprise organizations struggle to dedicate the resources needed to get started.

In this session, Everstring’s Dayna Rothman shares a series of actionable ABM hacks to help you clarify your priorities and improve your processes and technology.

You will learn:

- How to leverage what you already have to create personalized content that resonates with accounts
- About the different levels of account-based content marketing so you can prioritize where and how to spend your time
- How to use different types of marketing technology to bring your account-based content to the next level

Video is a very persuasive medium; it’s engaging and leads can use it to make their way through the entire funnel at their own pace – all you have to do is set up the content journey. At the bottom of the funnel, video can help you seal the deal when it comes to closing and can even help you post-purchase when you want to reinforce that you were the right choice.

In this webinar, we will share tips on how real-world B2B marketers can use video to turn late stage prospects into buyers. We'll also cover:

• 8 different video types to support the BoFu
• How to map your content to different stages of the funnel
• What information your potential buyers are looking for
• How to connect your video marketing campaigns to ROI

Webinars have proved to be one of the most cost effective and successful mediums of engaging with a global audience. While many organizations deploy a webinar strategy, they are often erratic and unorganized.

Join this webinar to learn how you can move away from one-off webinars to building a program that will “improve your demand generation funnel!

This session will cover:

•The evolution of webinars
•Key determinants of a successful webinar strategy
•Necessary evils and how to avoid them
•How to build a consistent strategy for your webinar program

Beginning a video marketing campaign can be daunting, in this webinar we will discuss what to expect when hiring a video production company, where to look for inspiration within your business, and how to leverage one video shoot into multiple pieces of content.

Traditional digital advertising channels are delivering declining results, forcing marketers to look for new alternatives that deliver better ROI. Influencer marketing has emerged as a powerful new addition to the marketing mix.

This study takes an in-depth look at the current state of influencer marketing and provides insight into how to run programs successfully. Both influencers and brands were surveyed to identify where they are aligned in their approach to influencer marketing and where there are gaps between the two. Topic areas covered include:

About the speaker:
Brian Solis is principal analyst at Altimeter Group (a Prophet company). Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders, speakers, and published authors in new technology, digital marketing and culture shifts.

As a Senior eGRC Consultant at the Nettitude Group, Ben Rothke knows little about how to create a successful email marketing campaign. But as someone who has received tens of thousands of emails from such campaigns, he’s seen what works and what doesn’t.

In this webinar, Ben will share some of the worst email fails he has received, which immediately went into the deleted folder. He’ll also share those emails that were effective, and resulted in a successful follow-up for the sender.

- Why content is at the forefront of digital strategy
- How to evangelize the importance of content marketing for your brand, product, service, or sector
- Tips and tricks of the trade
- Making a case for content marketing resources and measuring your efforts

In a digital world where customers have all the power and everyone is a publisher, increasingly high competition and standards are pressuring marketing teams into a race to produce higher quality content, in greater volumes, and at a faster rate than ever before, often with the same amount of resources. But while content is the fuel for every digital marketing engine, not everyone gets the same mileage out of it. A 2016 report from Content Marketing Institute found that while 88% of B2B organizations are using content marketing, only 30% rated their content efforts as being effective for reaching their goals.

This session delivers an insightful overview of common costly mistakes that can be killing your content marketing results, and a deep dive on how to maximize content marketing ROI with actionable tips and steps to amplify the impact of every content initiative, including:

· Content Planning. Creating monthly and quarterly content plans aligned with the customer journey, and key business goals and metrics

How critical is Marketing Operations as a distinct discipline inside your organization? Is it important enough to be independently funded? It is well enough understood for your organization to embrace it holistically and wholeheartedly?